Legendary Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has called for a major shake-up of the footballing calendar that would see the FIFA World Cup held every two years.
Wenger is Chief of Global Football Development at FIFA and is jointly responsible for law changes in the game and growing the sport at senior levels.
He has consistently called for a revamp in football, including changes to the offside rule, and now wants to see huge alterations made to the international game – stressing that there should be a focus on ‘competitions of meaning’ such as the World Cup and the Euros instead of competitions like the Nations League.
Speaking to beIN SPORTS, Wenger said:”If you look at the teams in the World Cups usually the average age is 27/28,” he said.
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“That’s why, because the World Cup is every four years there are very few chances to win it again because when they go back to the next World Cup they are 32/33.
“That’s why maybe we should organise the World Cup every two years.
“Kick all the rest out. Organise only competitions of meaning and kick all the parallel competitions out of the game. People must understand what is at stake and only have games with meaning,”he added, having been critical in the past of UEFA’s new Nations League tournament.
He said one idea on the agenda for the review, which is due to start this month, is to reduce the amount of international breaks taken from domestic football for qualifiers for major tournaments.
He proposed a new football calendar that would see all qualifiers moved into a tighter time-frame and a new start date for domestic seasons.
“I would say that’s one of the solutions we will discuss is to compact the qualifiers… instead of going away in October, November, September, March, June, we regroup the qualifiers all in one month or two quadruples in October and in February but at least the players can dedicate that time to the club from March until June, and we would gain four dates,” he said.
Any changes to the international match calendar would have to be passed by FIFA’s ruling council and possibly also a full congress of all federations.
Wenger said whatever calendar was agreed had to include a clear break for players.
“I believe it’s needed, with the physical resources that the players need today, it’s important that you have four weeks holiday,” he said.
The 71-year-old said he wasn’t ready to dismiss the possibility of returning to management but said he had a lot of work to do at FIFA.
“I don’t rule it completely out but I want really to have an influence on developing the academy, the research centre in Zurich and contribute to put in place what can make football outside Europe, in Europe as well, better,”he said.
“And as well let’s not forget the women’s football has a boom and they need as well a lot of support to do that.”
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COMMENTS
Lovely idea from Wenger. I have also personally questioned why the world cup should be every 4 years. Making it every 2 years means more revenues, more entertainment, more opportunities. It’s just better business, in my opinion.
As for the offside rule, I don’t think we should dispose of it entirely, but I think we should modify it. The offside rule should not be a tool for rescuing poor defenses, neither should it be too lax and strikers become lazy and immobile. There is a fine balance there. We just need to find it, and make the game more open and exciting. Reward bravery and enterprise.
@Pompei good talk… The world needs all-action football and senior world cup every two years has huge business potentials for the world of football. Countries in Africa can even dream of jointly hosting the world… It should be a “world” cup in every ramifications… Imagine a Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon joint hosting arrangement… or Ghana/Nigeria joint host… Cameroon/Gabon joint host. It will help bridge blind perceptions of subharan African countries when the world visits… imagine the potential for a complete merging of various international cultures and the education thereof… The benefits are huge. See the scanty football competitions that African nations even have at senior level. It’s all gain for this very line of thought… Kudos to Wenger, one of the masters of the game. People like them understand what can be made better, what is possible and what is not! I applaud this bigly…